Technical Field
The present invention relates to a waste toner container that receives, through an inlet thereof, waste toner that is discharged from an image forming apparatus, and contains therein the received waste toner.
Description of the Related Art
An image forming apparatus such as a printer forms a toner image on an image carrier such as a photosensitive drum and an intermediate transfer belt, and transfers the toner image onto a transfer object such as a recording sheet. Such an image forming apparatus generally removes residual toner on the image carrier by a cleaner or the like after the transfer, and contains the removed residual toner in a resin waste toner container as waste toner.
When the waste toner container has become full of waste toner, a user detaches the waste toner container to attach an empty one instead.
One of methods of sensing that a waste toner container has become full of waste toner is to use an optical waste toner sensor. According to this method, a light-transmissive window is provided in for example a side surface of the waste toner container. While the waste toner container is attached to a device body of an image forming apparatus, the waste toner sensor senses full of waste toner in the waste toner container from the window using sensing light that is transmittable through the window.